A Straight Fairytale
by Blues
Summary: Gawain and Robin set out on a journey. They will have adventures and maybe their friendship will survive and blossom into something more...


Ok so this is a part of the novel that I am trying to write specifically for slash fangirls.

**WARNING**, mention of rape and homosexual relationships, and torture… don't read it if you don't like that sorta stuff.

It's about the elf Robin and the human Gawain.

Gawain is in a tournament to win the princess and the kingdom (yeah classic stuff) he is a VERY poor baron, more a peasant than a nobleman actually.

On his way to the tournament he and his squire, Edgar made a stop at an inn, and here Gawain got extremely drunk, and he woke up naked next to this elf the next day. Homosexuality is not accepted among humans though, so this frustrates him like hell, especially because he can't remember if he and the elf actually did have sex.

They part ways but their paths cross again as Gawain needs a new squire for the tournament, Robin the elf happens to hear this and decides to help Gawain.

They have been travelling for almost a month - they have become friends. But Gawain gets sick and they have to take a break from the tournament travels. And this little chapter is about how Gawain discovers more about Robin's past.

The human island, Carbon is a VERY bad place for elves to stay, because most humans are very prejudged, and Robin is only staying on this island because he is hiding from his former boyfriend, Damian who is the ruler of the northern part of the elf island.

If you want to read more I can post the first draft for the first chapters, where all this introduction stuff is described in more detail.

The rain just kept pouring down in thick cascades, and they were both soaked, Gawain got more and more tired and his eyes glazed over. Robin could have continued easily, but could see that Gawain needed rest - his companion was a bit anxious and very tired, even as he let Emmy carry him he didn't look very good..

Robin quickly built a rather big bivouac under some large trees on a small hill close to the now muddy road to Bertioch, and Robin groomed Emmy the best he could and let her grass under the trees where she stood, her ass facing the heavy rain..

Gawain pulled out of his soaked clothes and tried to keep everything that was still dry, dry inside the bivouac. Robin looked away blushing as Gawain crawled under the damp blanket only wearing his undergarments.

Robin too got out of most of his wet clothes and hanged it all on a branch close to the spot where Emmy was now nibbling at the grass.

Robin prepared a warm soup, though it was hard to get a fire going with the pouring rain. He cooked extra potatoes as he realized they would be camped for several days, if Gawain's condition didn't improve. This illness and the weakness that followed was unknown territory to the elf, who wasn't used to diseases grapping hold so easily, and draining power.

Gawain was extremely tired and didn't talk much as he picked at his food. He gulped down a lot of water and fell asleep before Robin had cleaned the dishes off. Robin put his own blanket over Gawain. It was only noon, and Robin spent the next hours meditating under a tree next to Emmy. The rain didn't bother him and he enjoyed wash of as he sat only in his undergarments. Luckily it wasn't too cold, but as evening came the temperature dropped and Robin went to the bivouac to check on Gawain.

Robin was astounded at how the illness drained his human companion, Robin spent e few more hours lying against Emmy trying to mentally connect with the horse. She seemed to be annoyed at the rain but enjoying her rest, or that was at least how Robin interpreted what he felt.

Gawain didn't wake up until Robin went into bivouac to go to sleep. The groggy human was in a rather bad mood complaining about being stuck in the camp, while other contestants who travelled by carriage were probably gaining. At first Robin thought it was because they were wasting precious time, but he quickly realized there was something much more serious at stake.

"I've caught a cold, and I've got a fever." Gawain grumbled as he looked at the dark skies. "and this weather isn't gonna get better the next couple of days, I can feel it…"

"I can make you some tea…" Robin suggested.

"tea doesn't help!" Gawain snapped angrily and rolled onto his stomach "I'm going to get really sick if the temperature keeps going down."

Robin dimly remembered something Gawain had said about his parents, and he forgot his annoyance with Gawain's mood.

"your parents died of the lung decease… right?" he asked quietly looking at Gawain's reddening eyes.

"… yes, and Bill and Magda and little Phillip only 4 years ago…"

Robin waited, but Gawain seemed to be lost in thoughts. "I get really ill almost never, but I know you humans do, what can I do to help if the tea does not?"

Gawain looked at him. "make some better weather!" he snapped shivering.

"you are cold" Robin noted.

"yes, but don't worry, elf, soon my fever will go up and I'll be warmer." Gawain rolled onto his back in frustration and tried to find a comfortable position, his head was spinning and he could feel a dry spot in the back of his throat which made it painful to swallow.

"here let me help you feel warm" Robin offered and moved closer to snug under Gawain's two blankets. Gawain almost rolled out of the bivouac in shock. "what the damned abyss of limbo do you think you're doing!" he almost screamed propping himself up on his elbows and pulling both blankets tightly around him.

"ehm, I am going to share my body heat with you, so you do not get cold." Robin said starting to loose his patience with the moody human.

"you will stick to your side of the bivouac and to your own blanket queer boy!" Gawain said his voice cracking. He threw Robin's blanket back at the elf hitting the roof of the bivouac as he did, causing some rain to sneak in. "I have had too much close contact with you already!"

Robin looked both hurt and incredulous gaping at Gawain in dismay. "what is _with_ you? I thought you did not want to get sick and get a decease to the lungs." He said trying to control his own temper.

"you snuck into my bed before and I don't remember how I got my clothes of that night, I will have none of that! You stick to your side!" Gawain snapped, getting even more annoyed at the situation, bottled up frustration concerning their first meeting and its unanswered questions surfacing along side his annoyance at the cold.

"back to that day you keep coming back." Robin huffed, breathing slowly to remain in control.

"you haven't told me what happened, you keep insinuating disgusting stuff, and I am not gay, and…"

Robin rolled onto his back closing his eyes as he interrupted Gawain's rant. "…nothing happened on that rotten night! Why do you keep about it worrying? You say you are not gay, and if that true is, why do you suspect anything had happened?" he growled, taking Gawain aback for a second.

"we were _naked_!" he hissed propping himself up on his elbow to look at the elf and to hurriedly check that there really wasn't anyone nearby on the road. "That is sick and wrong! And I don't want more confusion, so I won't have any of your cuddling while I am ill and too weak to push you off me!"

Robin's head snapped up and his eyes locked with Gawain's. "oh so _that_ is it, huh? Well don't flatter yourself, I am not going to touch you!" he whispered in a low and barely controlled hiss. "keep the blanket and keep yourself warm, I wont share my body heat with you if you do not want it! sleep well!" he snapped as he turned his back to Gawain.

"I will!" Gawain snapped back turning his back to Robin.

Thus they lay as the rain hammered on the roof of the bivouac. Gawain was wide awake after having slept all day, but he could hear from Robins breathing that the elf wasn't sleeping either.

Gawain could feel his fever rising and he shivered feeling both cold and scalding hot at the same time.

Hours later Robin finally fell asleep. Gawain was dropping in and out of a troubled slumber when he heard Robin mumble in his sleep.

Gawain immediately got annoyed. Robin had woken him so often with his nightmares and mumbles, and Gawain was half a mind to shake the elf awake and start the row all over after having considered all the things he _should_ have told the stupid elf.

But then Robin started tossing in his sleep more violently and his mumbles became pained moans.

Gawain didn't understand all of it, because he didn't understand enough elvish, but he caught a few words, and the rest he didn't need to understand to get the meaning. "no… stop… please…"

Robinhad unconsciously placed his arms were over his head like Gawain had seen them a couple of times before during the elf's troubled dreams, but this time Gawain understood what was happening in the dream, and he realized it was the same dream Robin had over and over several times a week. Maybe every night, Gawain didn't know, he only woke up if Robin moaned loud enough to wake him.

Robin kept begging in the strange language, and though Gawain still only caught a few words, the tone of the voice and Robin's expression gave Gawain a clear picture, and suddenly got a really bad suspicion at why Robin had snapped at him.

The fever momentarily forgotten Gawain replayed their argument in his head.

Robin turned over in his sleep and rolled into a foetal position almost rolling out of the bivouac as he yelped in his sleep.

In the dim light Gawain looked at the bared scars on Robin's back and he gently reached out to shake Robin awake.

Robin bolted upright nearly crashing through the roof of the bivouac. "Huh? What?" he snapped looking around in panic trying to control his breathing. The rain kept hammering and Robin sagged back taking a couple of deep breaths.

"Robin?" Gawain tentatively croaked.

"Yes?" Robin huffed. Gawain didn't know if the elf was annoyed at his dream or at their last conversation, but things had a different perspective to Gawain now than it had just 10 minutes ago.

"you have a lot of nightmares…" he began.

"oh I am _so_ sorry I waked you!" Robin snapped. "maybe I should just build another bivouac and there sleep. Is that far enough away from you?" He said still not looking at Gawain.

Gawain didn't even bother to correct Robin's grammar. "you said that your boyfriend 'wasn't very nice to you'…" Gawain began studying Robin closely. "and I saw your scars, from when he beat you." Robin didn't answer; he just rolled over his back to Gawain.

"the scars from when he whipped you…" Gawain continued slowly reaching out to trace one of the scars criss-crossing Robins bare back. Robin started and turned looking angrily at Gawain.

"get your hands off!" he snapped wide eyed.

Gawain looked directly into Robins multicoloured orbs. "did he rape you?" he whispered in a hoarse voice that didn't sound like his.

Robin looked away and rolled over again. "go to sleep!" he whispered.

"he did." Gawain concluded, trying to grasp what this meant.

"I don't want to talk about that." Robin whispered, pulling his blanket around himself tightly.

Gawain waited, but Robin kept silent. The young man listened to the rain drumming hard on the bivouac for almost a minute before he ventured on.

"Naila is married to a merchant in the city, and she has a lot of friends there. Women with more possibilities that the peasants. Two of her friends have abusive husbands. And even though they could get a divorce on the grounds of their men hitting them… they don't. They keep apologising for them." Gawain whispered, Robin didn't move.

"One of them actually did leave her husband, and Naila was very happy for her, but then she went out and found another guy – just like the first one. And she keeps giving him chances, saying: "this time it'll work out" … but it doesn't."

"What is your point?" Robin said his voice loaded with anger.

"I just find it odd," Gawain whispered honestly. "You don't strike me as a weak person… if he raped you, and beat you, why didn't you leave sooner?"

Robin turned slowly to face Gawain, he didn't say a word, he just fixed Gawain with an odd glare that Gawain's fevered mind couldn't quite interpret.

"I didn't say anything that day in the hot spring, but those scars… some of them are more than a year old, I can see that." Gawain said, preparing for Robin's denial and excuses.

"He didn't just beat you once and then you left," Gawain said, suddenly wondering if it was a bad idea to bring it all up. He whished there were more space in their tiny bivouac. "I don't understand why not though…" he finished. "From the little I know of you, I got the impression that you wouldn't stay with such a jerk."

"I did in fact not want to stay…" Robin said still fixing Gawain with that strange look.

"Why didn't you leave him earlier then?"

Robin let out a sarcastic snort. "Oh Gawain you see, I wanted to leave, but that is a tricky thing to do… when you are shackled to the bed post." He said and held Gawain's eyes as the young human's jaw dropped.

"What?"

Robin laid back looking at the underside of the bivouac roof and a couple of raindrops that crept in where his head had collided as he bolted up in bed.

"How old are you again?" Robin asked, still not looking at Gawain.

"I turned 18 the first month of this spring…" Gawain said wondering if he should try to get Robin to talk about the issue or let him change subject.

"I have been planning my escape since shortly after you turned 15…" Robin said staring at the bivouac roof.

"Huh?" Gawain heard the words but wasn't sure if his fevered mind was playing games with him.

"So you are right, the scars are old, and I am not the kind of person who stays, I just did not have any say in that matter."

"Do you wanna talk about it?" Gawain heard himself ask though he desperately didn't want to hear about it, it just turned way more gross than he thought he could handle.

"Actually, no." Robin said his voice breaking.

Gawain didn't know what to say, he wanted to just say: "good night" but that seemed lame.

"I talked a lot to my healer friend Darnalkal" Robin went on in a low voice. "I think I would have went insane if it hadn't been for him."

"_gone_ insane" Gawain corrected for lack of anything better to say.

After a long pause Robin went on.

"Damian got a new shadow some years ago… he had a very bad influence on Damian…"

"A shadow?" Gawain asked perplexed.

"You know a sinister adviser, one that does the dirty work that is not for the light of day."

"Oh, right" Gawain said remembering the term being used in some of his old history books. "The guy who arrange assassinations and stuff that would make the kings own hands dirty."

"I told Damian that I did not really approve of Ellidshai's thoughts, and I hoped I could pull Damian in another direction." Robin breathed heavily. "Well, our relationship is long and complicated; I will not bore you with the details of how I _now_ realize that he manipulated me into believing we had the same values…" Robin said regret clear in his voice.

"But anyway, one day, Illidshai and Damian returned from a trip to Kel´itk and Damian was very excited about something… He wanted to show me something. I was in the garden reading up on druid stuff as usual when he was abroad, and we were alone in the rose rows except for a couple of the guards and Illidshai of course." Robin said staring fixedly at a raindrop that slowly crept towards the far end of the roof.

"He seemed to try and talk Damian out of showing me the magical item he had in his bag, and I got annoyed. I felt that Illidshai was already making Damian keep secrets from me, and I asked to see what it was."

The heavy rain seemed to get even heavier as it pounded down on the roof of their shelter and Gawain unconsciously crept a couple of inches closer to hear.

"it was a Ra´fu" Robin whispered, disgust so clear in his voice that Gawain didn't even ask what a Ra´fu was, it was clearly very bad.

"I just looked at Damian, not understanding how he could possibly have bought such a hideous thing, and then I looked at his smile and I realized that maybe… he hadn't _bought_ it…" Robin shivered.

"I was appalled, I didn't understand how the that elf I met those years ago could suddenly… well maybe not _suddenly_… as I look back, I _do_ realize that on _that _road he had been for some time…" Robin shook his head in disgust. "But anyway. I asked him: "where did you get that?" and he was like: "are you sure you want to know that?" and I was like: "those things are a disgrace!" and he went on about how they can be made by a willing healer wanting to help one last time…" Robin gulped in some air before he went on a bit faster than before.

"But I looked at the glint in his eye, that I never noticed earlier had, and I said to him: "but that's not how this was made was it?" and Illidshai snorted from behind me. I ignored him and looked at Damian. "You are not going to keep that!" I said firmly. But Damian just cocked his head and looked at me with a curious and hungry smile. "Yes I am" he answered slowly. And I started to realize that this was the end of our relationship, so I raised my chin and said: "they day you wear that is the day I leave." …" Robin kept breathing faster. "And then he… just put it around his neck with such an arrogant smile... When I look back now I realize that I should have recognised those smiles earlier for what they were, but even then I did not see it, but I _did_ realize that he wasn't going to listen, so I nodded at him, turned on my heal and said: "goodbye." and started walking to get my things."

Robin continued but closed his eyes, an angry expression masked his handsome features and Gawain was torn between wanting to hear the story and wanting to flee the claustrophobic confinement of the bivouac that seemed to close in on him as the story got more and more disturbing and uncomfortable.

"I passed Illidshai, who was not looking at me, he looking at Damian was, and not a second after that - everything exploded in pain, as he hit me hard in the back of the neck, and everything black went…" Robin steadied his breathing a bit before he went on.

"I woke up with a splitting headache, and I realized that I was in the bed, and as I remembered what happened had, I wanted to get up, but then to my dismay I realized that I was chained to the bed. I was wearing bracelets with ecco stones and I started screaming and thrashing in anger." Robin's voice turned into a low growl as he continued. "Then Damian came into the room Illidshai tailing him, Damian looking both smug and a bit annoyed, and he gave me this speech about how I belonged to him, and how _he_ decided whether I left or stayed, and that he was not going to let me go and so on… I wasn't really listening I was just so angry and I kept screaming at him. In the end he got really annoyed with me… and he started to take off his cloak…"

Gawain coughed loudly, he was absolutely sure he didn't want to hear this part of the story, Robin was pulled out of his trance and coughed as well.

"I fought and kicked and bit at him, for a month I fought him. He beat me and whipped me, and sometimes he had to tie me down more thoroughly… and Illidshai helped him. Sometimes I provoked Damian and shouted extra to make him angry, so he would beat me so hard that I lost consciousness, so I wouldn't be awake when he raped me." Robin put his hands over his face and took a deep breath.

"Sometimes I had to be healed, and that's how Darnalkal and I got friends. He liked me, and he talked to me, and helped me through it all, thought Illidshai was sometimes there keeping an eye on us, then we didn't talk as freely… after the first month I was on the verge of giving up."

A pause followed and Gawain felt he ought to say something. "Well…" he croaked in his feeble voice. "That's understandable…"

"I wanted to _die_!" Robin hissed his voice full of pain. "And I managed to fish out a vile of hemlock from Darnalkal's bag when he was in the bathroom to get some water for me. I hid the vile under the pillow. And when I was alone… I drank it all."

Gawain looked at Robin revolted. "That's an abomination!" he gasped looking at the elf in horror.

"Gawain, Damian was 400 years old, he might live 600 or 800 years… I was looking at at least 600 years of things worse than death, and I wasn't thinking straight. Besides, you know that I am not that religious, I actually felt that even if there _is_ a realm of El where we could go if we find our way through limbo, it wasn't worth living through 600 years of horror to get there, I'd rather commit suicide and be lost for ever… at least that's what I thought at that time, my concept of for ever might not have been clear… odd how we think about what comes after death when we suddenly get close to the edge of life… prior to that I had never really believed that there _was_ anything apart from our existence here…" Robin mused and got stuck in a trail of thoughts.

"You drank the poison…" Gawain prompted, still appalled at the fact that Robin had actually tried to take his own life, that he had been willing to cut his own threats that connected him to El.

"Yes, I downed it all, and I don't remember much after that… we elves can withstand poisons better than the rest of the races, but my body had a hard time. I was throwing up al over the place – I think it was one of the guards who heard my pained moans and alerted Damian. I woke up three days later. Darnalkal and 4 of his best students had healed me, they were still sick and recovering, but I was fine… until Damian and I were alone…" Robin's voice cracked. "The sheets were soaked in blood when he was done whipping me… he kept shouting at me that I belonged to him, and that I was not to leave him in any way."

Robin removed his hands from his face and turned to look at Gawain.

"After that things got a new perspective, and after talking to Darnalkal I decided on a new plan. I was going to get away, but I had to be patient – I had to plan it. So I stopped struggling. Damian was very suspicious at my sudden lack of resistance, but also very pleased."

Gawain shivered at the look in Robin's eyes, they seemed cold and empty, and in the distance he heard the first rumble of the thunder.

"Darnalkal had been unhappy with Damian's rule for many years it turned out… also before I met him. He said that I had had a good influence… or that I had at least been someone that Damian wanted to manipulate into staying, and thus he had acted a better ruler to get me to stay. But anyway he didn't approve of Damian, I was shocked to hear that Damians own doctor had small plots of getting him overthrown, but I found myself not caring, I just wanted to get away, and Darnalkal knew a lot about psychiatry, and he assured me that I could fool Damian if I just played it right, if I told him the things he wanted to hear…" Robin swallowed hard, as Gawain dimly wondered why he was blabbering when he just a moment ago had said he didn't want to talk about it.

"A good thing that he knew this psychiatry stuff, or I would have been lost to the debts of my own fading golden thread…" Robin continued in a dull voice. "And so the masquerade began, I told Damian that I had realized that he was the one in power, and that I wouldn't be able to flee. I told him that I had never been unsatisfied when we were a couple, so comparing the month I had just been through with the years earlier, I'd rather that our relationship in the bedroom went back to how it were…"

Again Gawain felt that the story was moving into a chapters he wanted to skip and he coughed loudly again. But Robin's empty eyes seemed to look right through Gawain and he didn't seem to notice how uncomfortable Gawain was.

"It took all my will power to not fight him that night, and the next… to do as if I thought everything was great. And I wanted to ask him to set me free the very next day. But Darnalkal had told me that it was very important that I waited, so Damian would not get suspicious. He needed to believe that I was sensire, and not just giving in so he would release me… Illidshai smelled the rat as soon as I asked Damian to let me walk around in the castle again – even though I had waited almost three weeks for the right time to come, and I had been very careful to choose my words right… I was being a bit nauseous every morning when I woke up next to Damian, and some times I threw up. Damian asked Darnalkal if I hadn't been healed properly… but Darnalkal replied that I probably needed fresh air, and the same night I asked Damian… immediately he was suspicious, and I was very humble when I said that I knew my place, and that I could never escape, I knew both Damian and Illidshai would catch me before I reached the gates. And I told him that I just wanted to be able to walk around outside a bit, I wanted to stretch my legs a bit more than I could walking to the bathroom those two times a day I was aloud. Illidshai strongly advised against letting me get out of bed. But Damian liked the way I had begged him, and he let me go."

The thunder kept rumbling in the distance and lightening lit up the clouds casting shadows on Robin's face. The elf still didn't seem to hear the rain or the thunder though; he was deeply absorbed in his own painful memories.

"­Illidshai then became _my_ shadow. He was with me every waking hour, if I even looked at the gates or at a window facing the east wall he would come up behind me and grab my hair or my arm and whisper threats in my ear. Sometimes he even stayed in the bedroom at night to make sure I did not try to run after Damian fell asleep."

"He stayed in the room while Damian and you… while…" Gawain asked disgusted, and this seemed to shake Robin out of his trance.

"Yes..."

"That's disgusting!" Gawain said feeling the bile rise in his throat.

"You will find few people who are more disgusting that Illidshai…" Robin grunted in disgust. "I don't know what was more degrading, him staying in the room while I pretended to enjoy Damian's advances or him staying in the room to help tying me down or observing my beatings… I hated his guts! I hated him before, when I thought he was the one making Damian do stupid things, but I hated him even more after this, even though I knew it was Damian's own mind that was twisted, Damian would have turned out just as bad without this particular shadow, it would just have happened later and in a slightly different way, but I think Darnalkal was right in saying that his mind was twisted…" Robin blinked away a couple of tears. "Yes… how I hated him…"

"Hated?" Gawain prompted.

"Yes, he is dead, that's how I escaped. I had realized that I would have to wait a lot longer than I had hoped, seeing as Illidshai was always there preventing me from leaving. And we had our rows, but one night… Damian was away on a trip to visit the other rulers; he had to be gone for a couple of days. He can gazar home and to some of the kingdoms with his favourite Gazareben, but not all of them, there is a couple of kingdoms he didn't bother to keep Gazarebens for since he visited them so seldomly, and when he went there he could just gazar to one place where he knew the local weaver had a Gazareben attuned to the right location. But anyway, usually he just gazared home to sleep, because he could… but on this trip he only did it every second or third day, because the travelling was a bit complicated. And at this particular night Illidshai and I get into an argument exactly about him staying in the bedroom while Damian raped me…"

Gawain shivered, Robin's voice radiated anger as he continued.

"We argued all the way from the study and through the halls, when we reached the western wall I asked him if he enjoyed it, and he answered: "no, you are young, but not enough to keep me interested…" and he send me a horrible smile… we had argued for 10 minutes before he said this and I was very angry, but just then - I realize that _he_ is the person that had molested some of the children in the city. I had heard of those incidents from both Darnalkal and some of the guards. Chenalack, the chief of the Guard, his daughter had been molested by a stranger in the forest that same year. We were good friends, and we talked a lot when ever we got the chance, though the chances were fewer after Damian had turned me from boyfriend to prisoner. Anyway it just so happened that he had been behind the door Illidshai and I had went through during the argument, this was his post, and he had been easting from the berry bushes that grew around the door. The discussion was a bit heated so I had headed outside to breathe some fresh air and cool down. Illidshai was trying to provoke me, if I tried to punch him, he would have had an excuse to beat me up and he had wanted that for a long time because of an earlier argument… but never mind that, we went out, and Chenalack was behind the door and he heard Illidshai too and he also realised who was responsible for the incidents. And as my temper got the better of me and I tried to punch Illidshai - Chenalack joined the fight and he threw Illidshai over the wall in a fit of rage."

Gawain stared wide eyes at Robin.

"We both saw him splash red against the coupled courtyard and guards on the ground looked up. Chenalack was in chock at what he had just done. And my brain kicked into motion. I shouted: _"no one will stop my escape, you have wronged me for the last time!" _so that they thought_ I _had pushed him, and I turned and punched a speechless Chenalack on the nose. He realized what I was up to and faked a fall and landed on his back already fumbling for the kea to my ecco-cuffs. The castle buys 20 at a time and those use the same kea, so the one he carried around as chief guard fit my cuffs and I ran for freedom."

"You took the blame." Gawain stated.

"yes, so he and his family could stay, when Damian returned… the rest of the flight was very easy, no one really made an effort to stop me, I think they all really wanted to help me, because they didn't approve of what Damian did either… lets face it, I was the closest thing to a slave I could be, he needed only to cut my hair and the abomination would have been complete."

Gawain nodded understanding. "Elves never take slaves…"

"prisoners we do take, but never make another sentient being our slave… some elves don't even want to exploit animals as slave animals… so well, they didn't try that hard to stop me… not that they could have, with the Illidshai stones off I was over the wall in less than 10 seconds by means of the acorn I wore around my neck… I always have one on me for emergencies and Damian had not bothered to remove it as I was wearing the Illidshai stones… I sprinted to the fold and let out all the horses, _all_ of them, and though I am not that well trained in communicating with horses, they understood the emergency and they followed my lead. I galloped on the lead horse into the city and directly towards the Nut Cream Inn where Darnalkal lived in a room over the stable, he…"

"The what?" Gawain snickred.

It's named after the most popular dish that is served…" Robin said a bit annoyed at the interruption. Gawain snickered again.

"it's really delicious, people come from all over to… anyway Darnalkal always spent his evenings there, the bartender being a good friend of his. And elves had heard the stampeet and had gone out to the street to see what happened, Darnalkal too and as he saw me he ran into the inn and returned in seconds with a bag of money and a letter. I had written Travitorian to ask for help and shelter when I finally escaped, Darnalkal had sent it for me in secrecy and he had the answering letter and gave me some money."

"But your brother didn't wanna help you…" Gawain scorned derisively.

"No, he _could_ not help me, there is a difference." Robin huffed, Gawain just snorted with disdain.

"everything went so fast, I didn't get to take anything with me, not even my staff, I just went to Phosamechnirr, the local earth-weaver and he gazared me to the coastal town of Rhen, and we agreed that when Damian asked him – because he would, he should say that I threatened him and told him that I had already killed one elf that night, and I would not hesitate to kill again if he didn't transport me. Then I spent the money in the bag on a trip with the first boat that left for Carbon, there wasn't quite enough, but I agreed to deliver the papers in your capital, that paid the rest and for a letter to my brother telling him that I would hide in a forest on your island, seeing as that was the last place Damian would look for me. And I told him that he should not worry, I would be alright."

A long pause followed. Gawain started to feel a bit dizzy and wanted to go back to sleep. Far away the clouds lit up as another lightning crossed the sky.

"… I am sorry." Gawain said slowly, looking at Robin.

"About what?"

"for our row earlier… I understand why you got so angry at me. You felt that I insinuated that you would… touch me without my consent while I slept… and after what happened to you I understand why that would make you mad."

Robin looked at him seriously. "Yes, I would never do anything like that in the nature of sex if you did not want to…"

"Which I don't!" Gawain quickly said again looking for eavesdroppers in the middle of the night that weren't there.

"Yes I get that…" Robin said sounding a bit tired. "But seriously, if Edgar was your squire, and you had been caught in this rainstorm with him getting a fever, would it have been such a big problem?"

"That's different, he's my friends and…"

"That is odd, I thought we were friends as well." Robin snapped a bit annoyed.

"That's not what I meant." Gawain backed.

"Well what _did_ you mean?" Robin said. "Where in lies the difference?"

Gawain found that he wasn't sure what to answer. If he had been travelling with Edgar he probably wouldn't have felt so awkward sharing the blanket, it all came down to that first night at the inn. Even though Robin said nothing had happened, Gawain had a nagging feeling that something could have, and that disgusted him more than anything else. He was disgusted with himself for even thinking that he could have wanted to lie next to a male naked, an elf even, even in his drunken state. It was so deeply disgusted in his culture, and even though he grew up in a little swamp filled with tolerant people, the profound feeling of dirtiness concerned with homosexuality still was rooted deep in him, and he realized that he wasn't really angry with _Robin_, he was mad at _himself _for even thinking he could have had sex with the elf, he was mad at himself for drinking so much that he let things get out of hand, and he was mad at himself for not being able to remember anything from that night, so he couldn't be certain of anything.

"I'm sorry, you're right." Gawain finally said. "I'm just prejudged… if I were travelling with Edgar he would have kept me warm…" he finally said closing his eyes trying to make his headache go away.

"Do you want me to?" Robin asked seriously looking calmly at Gawain with no trace of lust in his handsome face only concern.

"Yes…" Gawain finally complied and inched awkwardly closer. Robin put the blanket over both of them and turned his back to Gawain.

Though Gawain lay a bit stiffly for the first 15 minutes he slowly relaxed and started to enjoy the heat.

He still couldn't sleep though and he kept looking at the sky that lit up every time a thunder rumbled miles away. After about an hour he felt Robin's breathing slow down, as the elf fell asleep again, but this time he didn't have any nightmares and as morning started creeping closer the rain got a little less heavy and Gawain too fell asleep.

so please review and tell me what you like and dislike, and all sugestions for improval are welcome.

if you wanna read the introduction chapters - please tell me and I'll post them here as well


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